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Johannes "Carbon" Keely
King of Ratcatchers Johannes "Carbon" Keely is called the "King of the Ratcatchers" in St. Louis. He's believed to be over fifty, but it’s difficult to tell with all his scars and the leathery weariness of his features earned by decades of the hard life of a Ratcatcher. While his age is truly unknown, for a Ratcatcher, he has lived to a ripe old age. Carbon Keely now attends all the finest clubs, restaurants and popular venues in St. Louis and ranks amongst the top guests invited to all the finest parties by the rich and influential, the very epitome of the gentleman ratcatcher now living comfortably after a career of hardship. He has shaken hands with ambassadors, sipped tea with Hapsburg princes, and was rumored to tryst with one of the Romanov daughters. It may be thought by some that he lives above his station, but no one argues that if anyone deserves to do so, it is Johannes Keely. His legend began in the ruins of abandoned Chicago. After his family was killed by a swarm of rats, Keely became a ratcatcher. He was amongst the Ratcatchers hired by government to clear the deadly underground in flooded New York City, personally accounting for over twenty-five thousand rats slain, a very accurate accounting as they were paid by the pelt. Unlike many of his fellows, Keely never had to lie about his numbers to increase his pay; he delivered what he slew. His reputation for honesty spread from New York until his name was widely known in the outlying regions of New York, Pennsylvania, and the far northeastern states. Keely destroyed the legendary rats nest in Allentown, Pennsylvania when the iron and steel mills were brought back into function. Over a six-month period, the local authorities had to stop counting the vast quantity of dead rats and other vermin brought in by Keely and his “Carbon Gang", resorting to paying by the pound. Johannes’s Carbon Gang consisted of four brothers, one of the men's wife and her sister. He led them in an unrelenting campaign of annihilation against the monstrous swarm in and around Allentown. The Carbon Gang created some of the first stories of technologies used as primary weapons of the Ratcatcher. Carbon Mary, the sister, was an unrepentant tinker who invented much of the equipment used by the Carbon gang. At the end of the Carbon gang's six-month rampage of rodentia terror, the Allentown administrator sent a report to a fellow administrator, "The sheer numbers of dead vermin turned in by the Carbons cannot be accurately accounted. It would not be exaggeration to say that the quantity is larger than a million. Therefore, after consultation with Johannes Keely, their leader, recompense for their service is agreed upon at that number plus expenses." As was generally the case, the actual payment to the Keely Carbon Gang was not disclosed publicly, but for the six months spent in Allentown, they received an estimated sum exceeding eight hundred thousand pounds; the true number may be substantially higher, but is certain to be no lower. Similar stories of the Carbons continued for years until the disastrous attempt to reclaim portions of Washington, DC brought the Carbon Gang to an end. Two of the brothers, Samuel and Thomas along with Thomas’ wife Sally were slain, their camp overrun by an enormous pack of feral dogs. Johannes, Carbon Mary and the brothers John and William survived the onslaught, but William died the following day from injuries. After that the Carbon gang parted their separate ways with their spoils. Carbon Mary and John fell into anonymity while Johannes continued the work of a Ratcatcher, spending years extracting some measure of revenge for the deaths of his real family, and his adopted family, the Carbon Brothers and the wife. Johannes arrived in St. Louis almost a decade ago to retire. He now consults with younger Ratcatchers and the Ratcatchers Guild in St. Louis, but lives the life of a gentleman with his scars and stories as pathway to the fame he now enjoys.